Angelina Jolie boosts awareness on breast cancer, reconstruction surgery

When celebrities’ health problems make the news, media reports help shape public knowledge about those conditions and procedures, suggests a new study from Austria.

Following Oscar-winning film star Angelina Jolie’s May, 2013, announcement of her breast removal surgery to prevent cancer, women reported better knowledge of breast reconstruction options, researchers found.

While Jolie’s announcement focused on her genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer, the study’s senior author said that the results show the impact on public education extended to breast reconstruction.

“The key finding was that Mrs. Jolie’s announcement did indeed affect the public opinion going beyond gene-positivity [and] actually improving the awareness that breast reconstruction can be achieved with the use of one’s own tissue and that it can be done during the breast-removal operation,” said Dr. David Benjamin Lumenta, of Medical University of Graz.

In a 2013 essay in the New York Times, Jolie discussed her family history of breast cancer and the specific genetic variant that put her at an increased risk not just for breast cancer but for ovarian cancer, too. What’s more, she talked about her mastectomy and her breast reconstruction. The piece sparked a deluge of media reports.

Past research has tied Jolie’s breast surgery announcement to a doubling in the number of British women being tested for the genetic variants – known as BRCA 1 and 2 – that increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.For the new study, the researchers used data collected from 1,000 women recruited online in March, 2013 – coincidentally before Jolie’s announcement. The original intent was to learn about the women’s perception of their breasts and reconstruction. The researchers polled another 1,000 women in June, 2013, a month after Jolie’s announcement.

Between the two polls, there was a small increase, from about 89 per cent to about 93 per cent, in the percentage of women who knew breast reconstruction is possible after breast removal, the authors reported in the journal Cancer.

There was a larger increase – from about 58 per cent to about 69 per cent – in the percentage of women who knew reconstruction could be done using a woman’s own tissue. For example, Lumenta said, it’s possible to use a woman’s abdomen tissue “like in the case of a tummy tuck” for breast reconstruction.

There was an even larger jump – from about 41 per cent to about 60 per cent – in the proportion of women who knew that breast removal and reconstruction could be done during the same surgery.

About 20 per cent of women in the second study also said the coverage of Jolie’s announcement made them deal with the topic of breast cancer on a more personal level.

“Health topics, notably cancer, have always been of interest to the general public, and the predominant sources of information range from traditional media (magazines, newspapers) to Internet-based health platforms,” Lumenta said.

“The general public ... have obtained most of their information about health and disease even before consulting a specialist, in most cases without specific background knowledge,” he added. “The medical profession deals more than ever with this growing amount of information and it is in our hands to assist patients in making the right choice for their particular situation.”

The average person should seek advice on breast cancer and related topics from specialist centres offering a range of options, Lumenta said. Also, plastic surgeons should be consulted in the early stages of the decision making process.

Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/angelina-jolie-boosts-awareness-on-breast-cancer-reconstruction-surgery/article26585736/

Angelina Jolie single-handedly made a difference for women’s health, science confirms

When Angelina Jolie Pitt started talking about cancer, people listened.

A new study published Sept. 28 in the journal Cancer found that significantly more women knew about reconstructive breast surgery following a double mastectomy after Jolie Pitt announced she had undergone the procedure.

In May 2013, Jolie Pittwrote in a New York Times op-ed that she had a BRCA1 mutation that, along with her family history, put her at a greatly increased risk for breast and ovarian cancers. That's why she had decided to have adouble mastectomy and reconstructive breast surgery, she wrote.

Then, last May, she announced again in aTimes op-ed that she had decided to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in order to further reduce her risk.

Both op-eds circulated widely online.

After the first announcement, an AARP report found that more women were undergoing genetic testing to find out if they, too, carried a BRCA mutation.

This genetic predisposition comes in two types and can significantly increase women's cancer rates.

BRCA1, which Jolie Pitt has, gives women a 55 - 65% chance of developing breast cancer, while that risk is only 12% in the general population, according to the National Cancer Institute. But BRCA mutations are incredibly rare — only 1% of women actually carry them, according to another study in Cancer.

Confusion about these facts caused some people to overestimate the risks associated with BRCA mutations following Jolie Pitt's first announcement. A December 2013 study in Genetics in Medicine found that while three in four respondents were aware of her surgery, only fewer than 10% could accurately interpret how Jolie Pitt's risk compared to other women's.

But this new study, conducted in Austria, found that Jolie Pitt's decision to go public actually helped more women understand that they could get reconstructive surgery after having both of their breasts removed. The researchers polled two sets of 1,000 women before (in March 2013) Jolie Pitt's first announcement (which was in May 2013), and after (in June 2013) to try to gauge the effect her announcement had on public awareness.

While her disclosure helped educate some women on specific aspects of breast reconstruction, the effect may be limited. In response to the question "Has the related media coverage made you deal more intensively with the topic of breast cancer?" 80% of women polled after Jolie Pitt's op-ed said "no."

Source:http://www.techinsider.io/angelina-jolie-helped-inform-women-about-breast-cancer-2015-9

Angelina Jolie will shoot Netflix film in Cambodia

Angelina Jolie Pitt has been in scouting locations in Cambodia for her next film, First They Killed My Father, which she is casting entirely with local talent.

In a statement Thursday to The Associated Press, Jolie Pitt said she has spent the last week doing research and pre-production on the film before beginning shooting in Cambodia in November. She said she’s striving, through meetings with Cambodians, to ensure the movie about the deadlyKhmer Rouge regime is “accurate and faithful” to the 1970s events.

Jolie Pitt is collaborating with Cambodian author and human rights activist Luong Ung, who said the film “will be made with Cambodians as a symbol of dignity and an act of memory.” The two wrote the script together, adapted from Ung’s 2000 memoir.

Jolie Pitt has said her 14-year-old Cambodia-born son, Maddox, is heavily involved in the movie, which is told from a child’s perspective.

First They Killed My Father is planned for release by Netflix in late 2016. Jolie Pitt’s upcoming film, By the Sea, in which she co-stars with Brad Pitt, will be released Nov. 13.

Source:http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/24/angelina-jolie-shoot-netflix-film-cambodia/72731204/

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Finalize Plans To Adopt Penniless Syrian Orphan — Report

Angelina Jolie, 40, and her hubby Brad Pitt, 51, are stepping up to the plate again and are reportedly saving an innocent child from another country. A new repot claims the stunning humanitarian fell in love with a boy from Syria and is finalizing adoption plans to make him a Jolie-Pitt.

Let the home renovations begin! A new report claims that Angelina and Brad are prepping to take in a Syrian orphan. The loving actress reportedly met up with three Syrian brothers who were orphaned after their father was taken away by soldiers and their mother was killed when their home was bombed, according to Radar Online.

She originally wanted to take in all three boys, but Brad allegedly hesitated and told her it would be hard for their children to adjust to the new family dynamics.”Angie wanted to adopt all three, but when she got back to the United States, and told Brad about it, he said no,” a source told the outlet.

“Going from six children to nine was just way too much, and Brad was concerned about how it would impact their other kids. But Angie didn’t put up a fight. She knew it just wouldn’t work.” 

Source:http://hollywoodlife.com/2015/09/22/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-adoption-syrian-orphan-boy/

Angelina Jolie’s Cambodian film approved by PM

Cambodian premier Hun Sen on Thursday voiced his support for Hollywood star Angelina Jolie’s upcoming film about the murderous Khmer Rouge regime after the pair met in Phnom Penh.
The actress-turned-director is adapting First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, a memoir by Cambodian rights activist Loung Ung about surviving the communist regime.
In its quest for an agrarian Marxist utopia, the brutal Khmer Rouge killed up to two million Cambodians between 1975-1979 by starvation, overwork or outright execution.
Hun Sen said the film “reflects facts in Cambodia and will be a way for younger generations to understand the country”, the prime minister’s spokesman Eang Sophalleth told reporters after the meeting.
Jolie has previously said the film helped her draw closer to the people of Cambodia, the homeland of Maddox, her adopted son with husband Brad Pitt.
She will direct and produce the film for streaming giant Netflix from a script she co-wrote with Ung, while acclaimed Cambodian director Rithy Panh will also serve as a producer.
After two top regime leaders were last year sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, Hun Sen — a former mid-ranking Khmer Rouge cadre before he defected — spoke out against further prosecutions, warning it risked reigniting conflict.
Former “Brother Number Two” in the Khmer Rouge Nuon Chea, 89, and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan, 84, are appealing their landmark 2014 convictions by Cambodia’s UN-backed court.
They are also undergoing a second trial for genocide, centred on the killing of ethnic Vietnamese and Muslim minorities, forced marriage and rape.
“Brother Number One” Pol Pot died in 1998 without ever facing justice.
In March, the tribunal charged three more former Khmer Rouge members with crimes against humanity, ignoring the warnings by Hun Sen.

Source:http://gulfnews.com/leisure/movies/news/angelina-jolie-s-cambodian-film-approved-by-pm-1.1586367

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt Kids: Couple Instructing Children How Interact With Daughter Shiloh?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have reportedly encouraged their kids to be accepting of daughter Shiloh's decision to dress like a boy.

"Brad and Angie have been doing everything possible to protect her from being bullied by her peers and outsiders," a source told RadarOnline. "They have also been gently setting the tone for how their five other children (Maddox, 14, Pax, 11, Zahara, 10, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 7) interact with (9-year-old) Shiloh."

"Shiloh typically wants to play with her three brothers," according to the insider. "Maddox is old enough to help the younger siblings understand what Shiloh is dealing with."

Pitt, 51, and Jolie, 40, have apparently spoken to a transgender expert about Shiloh.

"After seeking out professional advice on how to help Shiloh, Brad and Angelina were told to let her dress however she wanted," the insider revealed. "This has been an opportunity for fun in the family, because Vivienne and Zahara love to dress up in their mother's clothes. The kids are constantly putting on plays for their parents, and Shiloh often directs with Pax."

According to the source, "Brad was told Shiloh would have gravitated towards dressing as a boy, and being called John, even if her siblings were all girls. It's just the way Shiloh is, and there is nothing that they did wrong as parents."

"Brad and Angelina are loving parents, but were told all of their kids could benefit from more discipline and structure," added the insider. "There is absolutely no spanking allowed, and the kids really are never told no. None of the kids have to make their bed or clean their rooms."

According to the source, "Angelina is very accepting of Shiloh's choices, and Brad is as well. However, Brad wondered if Shiloh was just a tomboy and would outgrow it."

Source:http://www.designntrend.com/articles/61004/20150916/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-kids-couple-instructing-children-how-interact-daughter-shiloh.htm

Angelina Jolie Pitt did not leave us starstruck

Your correspondent John Crace accuses me of speaking “haltingly” when I introduced the actress and human rights campaigner Angelina Jolie Pitt before she gave evidence to the Lords’ sexual violence in conflict committee which I chair (John Crace’s sketch: Hague upstaged as Jolie sprinkles stardust, 9 September).

The impression he was trying to give of course was that my fellow committee members and I were beside ourselves with excitement to be in the presence of a Hollywood superstar. To use Mr Crace’s exact words “the general levels of tizziness” betrayed our excitement.

This is nonsense. Mrs Jolie Pitt and her two fellow witnesses, Mr Hague and Lady Helic, came to give evidence about very serious matters of vital importance.

If I did speak haltingly – and my colleagues told me I did not – then this was not because of some schoolgirl-like excitement at being in the presence of Hollywood royalty, but because of my profound hearing loss.

As I have always made very clear, my lack of sensory perception in both ears and eyes from birth could have made life extremely complicated. I owe my capacity to speak at all to the dedication of my mother, my sisters, and singing teachers.

Most deaf people don’t have this extraordinary luck and many remain silent. Indeed a boy of 16, less deaf than myself, told me recently he would never try to speak in public because he would be laughed at.

I would normally not criticise the noble art of the sketch writer, which I often find wonderfully amusing, but in this instance – while I have since discovered that Mr Crace was unaware of my disability – the words that he chose were unfortunate

Source:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/14/angelina-jolie-pitt-did-not-leave-us-starstruck

Angelina Jolie effect’ sees more male patients opting for double mastectomy

Most people assume breast cancer is just a female thing. But about 1 per cent of cases in the United States occur in men — and it turns out that a growing number of them are choosing to remove both breasts to reduce the risk of recurrence.

In a study published last week in JAMA Surgery, researchers report that the share of male breast cancer patients getting contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, or CPM, which involves removing a healthy breast in addition to one with a tumor, nearly doubled between 2004 and 2011, rising from 3 per cent to 5.6 per cent.

This trend mirrors what’s happening in women, whose CPM rate has also risen quickly, from 4.5 per cent to 11 per cent between 2003 and 2011.

The new research, which was conducted by the American Cancer Society and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, didn’t delve into why this may be happening, but experts have suggested that the trend may be due to the growing availability of genetic testing that gives people a better sense of their risk, as well as what cancer specialists call the “Angelina Jolie effect.” The actress had a double mastectomy two years ago after being told she had the BRCA1 gene mutation, which put her at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

The JAMA Surgery study comes at a time when more researchers, practitioners and activists are questioning the benefits of aggressive efforts to diagnose and treat breast cancer, arguing that all the public attention to “pink ribbon” breast cancer campaigns may have inadvertently influenced people to undergo risky and costly treatments that may not help them.

A study published last month in JAMA Oncology, for instance, found that aggressive interventions to treat the earliest stage of breast cancer, called ductal carcinoma in situ, had no effect on whether a woman was alive a decade later. The research tracked more than 100,000 women.

“We have created a culture of breast cancer awareness, and we’ve created a countercultural response of fear. When you do a mastectomy, you reduce the fear greatly,” Steven Narod, a senior scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto, told The Washington Post. He was the leader of the JAMA Oncology study.

Another much-debated study that came out this summer looked at the utility of mammograms by analyzing data from 16 million U.S. women in 2000. Researchers found that the number of breast cancer diagnoses rose with more-aggressive screenings. That was expected. The surprise was that the rate of deaths remained the same. Study author Richard Wilson, a professor at Harvard University, argued that these findings “suggest widespread overdiagnosis.”

Ahmedin Jemal, one of the authors of the JAMA Surgery study on men, said in a statement that “health-care providers should be aware that the increase we’ve seen in removal of the unaffected breast is not limited to women, and doctors should carefully discuss with their male patients the benefits, harms, and costs of this surgery to help patients make informed decisions about their treatments.” In some cases, experts warn, it may not be the right decision.

Source:http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2015/09/13/angelina-jolie-effect-sees-more-male-patients-opting-for-double-mastectomy.html

Brad Pitt Hires A Professional To Help Shrinking Angelina Jolie Pack On The Pounds

Angelina Jolie’s shrinking frame has had Brad Pitt worried about his wife for months, but when the actress dropped even more weight almost overnight, her husband made a call to action.

Source:http://okmagazine.com/photos/angelina-jolie-weight-thin-skinny-brad-pitt-retreat/photo/1001314035/

Angelina Jolie Has A Look-Alike & The Resemblance Is Insane

Chelsea admitted to having had a nose job, breast implants and lip fillers, but it wasn’t to look more like Angelina. “This wasn’t to try and resemble anyone,” she said. “This was purely because I had absolutely nothing there before and it was something I was insecure about for years.”
Chelsea recently posted an Instagram collage of photos and stories written up by outlets commenting on how much she looks like Ang. She said she was “flattered” and “grateful” for all the nice things that were being said about her. Aw!
If Chelsea ever wants to try something new, she could seriously take up being Angelina’s body double. To be honest, we probably wouldn’t know the difference on camera!

Source:http://hollywoodlife.com/2015/09/05/angelina-jolie-look-alike-chelsea-marr-identical-pics/